jose melendez said:
I guess my gut reaction is that what's really important is the same thing that's important for anyone--not being manipulative. It seems like trying to hook up with someone who wouldn't want to hook up with you if they new your gender identity is manipulative. I'd like to assume most trans folks aren't manipulative, but if their anything like cisgendered folks, probably lots of them are.
I had a conversation on OKcupid once with a rollergirl who turned out to be trans, and she was completely honest with me after a few emails exchanged. I appreciated it. Since I wasn't interested in what she had on offer, I wished her good luck in finding love and moved on. I wouldn't have been a dick if we'd met in person, (I'm 99% sure I would have fiugred it out) but I think it would have been pretty akward. If I actually hooked up with someone and found out in the process they had man parts, I think I'd be pretty pissed and feel pretty used. I probably err on the side of being excesively understanding, but I'm really honest with people (too honest if you ask my wife) and I expect folks to be honest with me.
It is a difficult and perilous business, trying to draw bright-line boundaries in the messier parts of human affairs. And the tenor and civility of this thread has mostly been exemplary in demonstrating a good-faith effort to be circumspect and thoughtful, so thanks to everyone for that. Along the same lines, I hope I can phrase the following without sounding accusatory or combative:
This talk of "honesty" or "being manipulative" kind of pre-supposes that a trans person is being somehow untruthful about their identity or person. It also presupposes a kind of "default" state where sex between people who don't know each other well typically happens in an environment of frank transparancy and complete information.
I think both of those theses ought to be proved before we start requiring pink armbands, so to speak. And I don't think they have been.
A lot of heterosexual men especially, including ones who think of themselves as open-minded and libertarian on pesonal sexuality, find the concept of being with a trans woman icky, to put it plainly. Full disclosure: I am one of those people who is supportive of everyone's right to be who they am, but who thinks the idea of touching peepees with a trans woman seems icky. Frankly, I have hardly met any that I am aware of, and most of my exposure to transexuality is probably not representative of reality.
Without getting too far into the weeds of my or anyone else's personal sexual hangups, or the complex morality of sexual attraction vs personal merit...
There are limits to what can realistically happen to most people in terms of "accidentally" having consensual sex with someone. Setting aside credulity-stretching tabloid scenarios, casual sex with people whose background you don't know well is intrinsically a game of chance, and there is some obligation on the part of the participants to proactively screen for their own "standards", to whatever degree one has them.
Most especially, people don't "end up" having sex with a category of persons, they have sex with specific individuals. If everyone had to go around announcing all the reasons you might not want to have sex with me, people of all stripes would be having a lot less recreational sex.
I think it is categorically unfair to liken trans to an STD: STDs pose genuine and quantifiable danger to sex partners of the infected. Being trans does not.
I also think that there is a problem with the notion that trans women could get hurt if they aren't forthright about their past. These kinds of personal-safety strategies are like outrunning the guy next to you in the event of a wild bear: they might be individually good survival practice, but they do nothing to reduce the incidence of bear attacks.
So, coming back to this notion of trans people having some kind of special obligation to inform potential sex-partners... Why should they? I mean, in all seriousness, isn't every sexual decision an individual one?
To draw an inappropriate parallel, it seems kinda like saying that gay men should not be allowed to hit on straight men, because then men who are not gay might end up enjoying gay sex, and even falling in love with other men... how do you know you're straight, if that really happens?
I feel like it is imposing an unnatural and artifical category on people, and a denial of the individuality of both the trans person and anyone who might or might not be attracted to them, to say: "You can do whatever you want, but just remember to announce to everyone that you were born with a penis, otherwise someone might accidentially fall in love with you as a person without realizing that they were falling for a frankenstein monster..."
Some people have sex with strangers and don't really care about the person's past or personality. Other people do want to know the people they are dating or sleeping with. It's a tricky business to say precisely where the bright, hard edge of "honesty" lies in the politics of sex. It's not the same in Amish country as it is in Greenwich Villiage or Saudi Arabia. I think the burden of proof is on those who would claim "the line is here", and it's not enough to say "that's where I think it is" or "that's where most people think it is".